Naugatuck Valley Project (NVP) Project (NVP) was organized in 1983. It is made up of 25 religious, community and labor organizations. Its most recent accomplishments have included winning agreement from the 4 Valley hospitals to take steps to create face-to-face medical interpretation services; helping form a coalition which has just won $4.7 million from the State of Connecticut to fund face-to-face medical interpretation for thousands of new immigrant speakers of limited English; as well as prosecution by the Connecticut Attorney General of 3 major predatory lenders in the Valley. It has also saved 3,000 jobs in threatened plant closings, created Valley Care Cooperative, an employee-owned firm with 75 previously low-income women of color as worker-owners, a 102-unit limited equity/sweat equity cooperative housing development and a community land trust. NVP has also successfully organized to gain major improvements in a 300-unit 95% African-American public housing project, to protect the health benefits of thousands of retirees, and to develop job training in the nursing home and screw machine industries and brownfield redevelopment programs.
Merrimack Valley Project (MVP) was organized in 1989 with the support of the NVP, and is made up of 31 member religious, labor and community organizations in Lawrence and Lowell and their suburbs. Its most recent victories are winning job improvements and ESOL classes for 1,000 immigrant temp workers at the Gillette packaging facility; $500,000 from Gillette to fund an ESOL/Career Ladders Program; agreement by the City of Lowell to hire developers for a city-owned housing redevelopment project which will lead to the preservation of affordable housing units; and the passage of the Massachusetts Fair Transportation Act which caps formerly exploitative transportation fees charged 71,000 temporary workers in the commonwealth. Its additional major accomplishments include saving over 600 manufacturing jobs; the creation of the Merrimack Valley Manufacturing Partnership which helped firms increase sales and create 150 jobs; the resident buy-out of Amesbury Gardens, a 160-unit democratically owned affordable housing development in Lawrence; increased public funding for firefighting, community policing, and after school programs; the creation of the City Commission on Immigration in Lowell and a City Task Force on Immigration in Lawrence; and organizing the Temporary Workers Association which has won significantly increased enforcement by the Attorney Generals office of employment laws against temporary agencies in the Valley.
Rhode Island Organizing Project (RIOP) was organized in 1993 with the support of MVP, and is made up of 15 institutions. RIOP has brought together a broad cross of people from different races, religions and economic groups to promote the common good and fight for justice. RIOP works in the cities of Providence, Central Falls, East Providence, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket. Its major accomplishments include successful campaigns to increase state funding for affordable housing; rehabilitate inner city neighborhoods; win changes in state tax law to deter real estate speculation; and expand funding for adult basic education & after school programs. Most recently, RIOP has worked on initiatives to promote food security in East Providence and permanent supportive housing for the homeless in Woonsocket.
Pioneer Valley Project (PVP) is a coalition of churches, synagogues, labor unions, and other organizations that have a strong interest in community life in the Pioneer Valley. There are currently twenty-six member organizations that form PVP. The member organizations come from all sections of Springfield and the surrounding community. Consequently, its membership is very diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, age, religion, socio-economic status, and just about any other demographic category.
PVP is modeled on a number of other community organizing groups that have effected important social changes in their own communities. The basic goal of PVP is to respond to the concerns that the participants in the member organizations raise as the social problems that are plaguing their communities. To this end, each of the member organizations surveys its congregation or membership each year to determine what particular social issues seem most pressing to its members. PVP then holds an issues assembly at which the entire membership of PVP gives input into what projects and goals the PVP will focus on during the next year.
Granite State Organizing Project (GSOP) was organized in 2001. It is made up of 26 religious congregations, community and labor organizations in Greater Manchester, Greater Nashua and the Souhegan Valley. Its most recent victory has been helping gain a multi-community agreement to initiate a non-emergency medical transportation system in the Souhegan Valley. It has helped win $100,000 to continue a parent participation program to reduce student drop-out rates among new immigrants and low-income non-immigrant children. It has also stopped school budget cuts in Manchester and Nashua schools which would have disproportionately affected new immigrant and African American children. It and participated with other organizations to successfully win increases in funding for lead paint abatement, removal of requirements that new immigrants travel to the state capital to renew their driver licenses, and the creation of affordable housing. It also successfully organized with 500 white and blue collar workers and the community to win benefits and job training in a Tyson Foods shutdown of Jac-Pac Foods in Manchester.
Kennebec Valley Organization (KVO) was founded in November 2006 with the support of IVP. Its initial member groups are 10 religious congregations and labor union locals in Waterville, Augusta and Skowhegan. Its most recent victory was playing a critical role in the successful drive to increase the state minimum wage by gaining the support of key Valley legislators. It has also won the creation of first responder training in 11 police and sheriff departments to reduce the dangers and injustice of wrongful arrest of residents with mental health problems.
United Valley Interfaith Project (UVIP) leaders have built the seventh IVP organization by bringing together congregations from New Hampshire and Vermont communities bordering the Connecticut River, from Charlestown, New Hampshire and Springfield, Vermont in the south to Bradford, Vermont and Haverhill, New Hampshire in the north. UVIP leaders recently brought together 130 leaders from 10 congregations who had conducted 600 individual meetings in a first Issues Assembly. These leaders chose transportation and housing as their priority issue areas at the UVIP Founding Action in the November 2008.
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